More than one million medical card holders may lose their access to free dental care after dentists voted to withdraw their support for the scheme.
Irish Dental Association (IDA) members voted by 92 per cent to stop co-operating with the Dental Treatment Services Scheme (DTSS), the group said today.
The DTSS was set up by the Government in 1994 and has been due for full renegotiation since 2000. The IDA said the number of dentists offering services under the DTSS had significantly decreased over the past two years and that many of the remaining dentists were curtailing their services on a daily basis.
Dr Maurice Quirke of the IDA said: "The commercial reality is that many dentists can no longer afford to absorb the losses associated with the administration and provision of services under the scheme.
"The HSE will undoubtedly suggest that dentists receive vast sums of money under the scheme. However, while these figures will provide good headlines and may indeed look generous, they fail to cover the cost of many individual treatment items to medical card holders."
Dr Quirke said the IDA was calling on Minister for Health Mary Harney to intervene and called for an urgent meeting with her.
